Where Wyoming Boulevard Meets Paseo Del Norte  


This is the day they put Virginia in her grave—
The bright desert loomed like a healing planet
Sent out in dim early morning to light
The way home. There was, in the high reaches
Of the Sandia Mountains east
Of the cemetery a road to Santa Fe
We took after the service, driving her little
Station wagon all the way from Madrid
To Galesteo where we drank warm beer
In a grove of cottonwood before heading for a brick building
In the state capital where we’d file her death certificate—
Of the way back home, I can only recall the fluttering
Of my inner heart as the red desert rushed past,
Alien, unknown, without revision.